Folwith ecco, that holdith no silence,
But ever answereth at the countretayle :
Beth nought bydaffed for your innocence,
But scharply tak on yow the governayle :
Empryntith wel this lessoun on your mynde,
For comun profyt, sith it may avayle.

Ye archewyves, stondith at defens,
Syn ye ben strong, as is a greet chamayle,
Ne suffre not, that men yow don offens.
And sclendre wyves, felle as in batayle,
Beth egre as is a tyger yond in Inde;
Ay clappith as a mylle, I yow counsaile.

Ne drede hem not, do hem no reverence,
For though thin housbond armed be in mayle,
The arwes of thy crabbid eloquence

Schal perse his brest, and eek his adventayle :
In gelousy I rede eek thou him bynde,

9070

9080

And thou schalt make him couche as doth a quayle.
If thou be fair, ther folk ben in presence
Schew thou thy visage and thin apparaile ;
If thou be foul, be fre of thy despense,
To gete the frendes do ay thy travayle :
Be ay of chier as light as lef on lynde,

And let hem care, and wepe, and wryng, and wayle.

is printed in Mr. Halliwell's Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, p. 129. A large woodcut, printed in a broadside of the time of Elizabeth, and preserved in the collection of broadsides, &c. in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, gives a representation of these two monsters. 9074-wyves. The reading of the Harl. MS. is wyde wes.

THE PROLOGE OF THE MARCHAUNDIS TALE.

"WEPYNG and wailyng, care and other sorwe
I knowe y-nough, bothe on even and on morwe,
Quod the marchaund, "and so doon other mo,
That weddid ben; I trowe that it be so:
For wel I woot it fareth so with me.

I have a wyf, the worste that may be,
For though the feend to hir y-coupled were,
Sche wold him overmacche I dar wel swere.
What schuld I yow reherse in special
Hir high malice? sche is a schrewe at al.
Ther is a long and a large difference
Betwix Grisildes grete pacience,
And of my wyf the passyng cruelté.
Were I unbounden, al so mot I the,
I wolde never eft come in the snare.
We weddid men lyve in sorwe and care,
Assay it who so wil, and he schal fynde
That I say soth, by seint Thomas of Inde.
As for the more part, I say not alle;

" 9090

9100

The prologe. This prologue is omitted in some MSS., and in others a different prologue is given, and the Clerkes Tale is in some followed by the Frankelein's Tale. The prologue and arrangement of the Harl. MS. are, however, evidently the genuine ones. Tyrwhitt quotes from other MSS. the following concluding stanza to the envoye ;—

This worthy clerk whan ended was his tale,
Our hoste saide and swore by cockes bones,

Me were lever than a barrel of ale

My wif at home had herd this legend ones;

This is a gentil tale for the nones,

As to my purpos, wiste ye my wille,
But thing that wol not be, let it be stille.

God schilde that it scholde so byfalle.
A good sir host, I have y-weddid be

Thise monethes tuo, and more not, pardé ;

9110

And yit I trowe that he, that al his lyve

Wyfles hath ben, though that men wold him rive
Unto the hert, ne couthe in no manere

Tellen so moche sorwe, as I now heere
Couthe telle of my wyfes cursednesse."

"Now," quod our ost, "Marchaunt, so God yow blesse ! ye so moche knowen of that art,

Sin

Ful hertily tellith us a part."

"Gladly," quod he, "but of myn oughne sore

For

sory

hert I telle may na more."

9120

THE MARCHAUNDES TALE.

WHILOM ther was dwellyng in Lombardy
A worthy knight, that born was of Pavy,
In which he lyved in gret prosperité ;
And fourty yer a wifles man was he,
And folwed ay his bodily delyt
On wommen, ther as was his appetyt,
As doon these fooles that ben seculere.
And whan that he was passed sixty yere,

The Marchaundes Tale. The French fabliau, from which this Tale was no doubt translated, is not now known to exist, but the subject has been preserved in Latin in the metrical tales of Adolfus, printed in my Latin Stories, p. 174, of which collection it forms the first tale. It is told also in a Latin prose tale given in my Latin Stories, p. 78, from the Appendix to the editions of Æsop's Fables printed in the fifteenth century. 9128 sixty. The Harl. MS. reads here as in 1. 9124, fourty. Tyrwhitt reads in both places sixty. The Lansdowne MS. has xl in the first place, and læ in the second, which numbers I have thought it safest

Were it for holyness or for dotage,
I can not say, but such a gret corrage
Hadde this knight to ben a weddid man,

That day and night he doth al that he can
Taspye wher that he mighte weddid be;
Praying our lord to graunte him, that he
Might oones knowen of that blisful lif,
That is bitwix an housbond and his wyf,
And for to lyve under that holy bond,
With which God first man to womman bond.
"Noon other lif," sayd he, "is worth a bene:
For wedlok is so holy and so clene,
That in this world it is a paradis.”

Thus sayd this olde knight, that was so wys.
And certainly, as soth as God is king,
To take a wyf is a glorious thing,

And namely whan a man is old and hoor,
Than is a wyf the fruyt of his tresor ;
Than schuld he take a yong wif and a fair,
On which he might engendre him an hair,
And lede his lyf in mirthe and solace,
Wheras these bachileres synge allas,
Whan that thay fynde eny adversité
In love, which is but childes vanité.
And trewely it sit wel to be so,

9130

9140

9150

I

to adopt the transposition of 7 and x easily gave rise to different readings. suppose that Chaucer meant to reckon the period during which his hero remained "wifles" from the ordinary period of marriage, or about his twentieth year. The reading of MS. Harl., in 1. 9128, is totally incompatible with the old age and impotency under which January is described as labouring.

That bachilers have ofte peyne and wo:
On brutil ground thay bulde, and brutelnesse
Thay fynde, whan thay wene sikernesse :
Thay lyve but as a brid other as a best,
In liberté and under noon arrest;
Ther as a weddid man, in his estate,
Lyvith his lif busily and ordinate,
Under the yok of mariage i-bounde:

Wel may his herte in joye and blisse abounde.
For who can be so buxom as a wyf?

Who is so trewe and eek so ententyf

To kepe him, seek and hool, as is his make?
For wele or woo sche wol him not forsake:
Sche is not wery him to love and serve,
Theigh that he lay bedred til that he sterve.
And yet som clerkes seyn, it is not so,
Of whiche Theofrast is oon of tho :
What fors though Theofrast liste lye?
Ne take no wif, quod he, for housbondrye,
As for to spare in houshold thy dispense :
A trewe servaunt doth more diligence
Thy good to kepe, than thin oughne wif,
For sche wol clayme half part in al hir lif.

9160

9170

9160-busily. The MS. Lansdowne has blisful, which is the reading adopted by Tyrwhitt.

9172-Ne take no wif. "What follows to ver. 9180 incl. is taken from the Liber aureolus Theophrasti de nuptiis, as quoted by Hieronymus contra Jovinianum, and from thence by John of Salisbury, Polycrat. 1. viii. c. xi. Quod si propter dispensationem domus, et languoris solatia, et fugam solitudinis, ducuntur uxores, multo melius dispensat servus fidelis, &c. Assidere autem ægrotanti magis possunt amici et vernulæ beneficiis obli gati quam illa quæ nobis imputet lachrymas suas," &c -Tyrwhitt.